PAS-C01 Vertical Scaling Practice Question
A company is running SAP HANA on AWS. The system administrator notices that the SAP HANA database is frequently running out of memory, causing performance degradation. Which AWS service should the administrator use to set up memory usage alarms and automate scaling of the SAP HANA instance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume that 'Auto Scaling' can perform vertical scaling, but AWS Auto Scaling is horizontal only. Vertical scaling of a single instance requires services like AWS Systems Manager or a custom Lambda-based solution.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
AWS Systems Manager
AWS Systems Manager. To scale a single SAP HANA instance vertically, the administrator can use CloudWatch to monitor memory usage (via custom metrics) and trigger an alarm that invokes an AWS Systems Manager Automation document. The Automation document can execute the 'modify-instance-type' step to change the EC2 instance type to one with more memory. Option D (Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Auto Scaling) is incorrect because AWS Auto Scaling is designed for horizontal scaling (adding/removing instances) and does not natively support vertical scaling of a single instance. Option B (AWS Lambda) could be part of a custom solution but is not the primary service for setting up alarms and scaling; Lambda alone does not provide monitoring or scaling orchestration. Option A (Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling) also focuses on horizontal scaling and is not suitable for vertical scaling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is used for horizontal scaling (adding/removing instances) at the group level, not for vertical scaling of a single SAP HANA instance.
- ✗
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Lambda lacks native integration with SAP HANA’s memory-management APIs, so it cannot directly read the database’s memory-utilisation metrics or trigger a vertical scale-up of the EC2 instance hosting HANA. It is tempting because Lambda can execute custom code in response to CloudWatch alarms, and in a scenario requiring stateless, event-driven compute for tasks such as resizing non-HANA workloads or restarting services, it would be the correct choice.
- ✓
AWS Systems Manager
Why this is correct
AWS Systems Manager can automate vertical scaling by using an Automation document that resizes the instance, triggered by CloudWatch alarms on memory metrics.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Auto Scaling
Why it's wrong here
Amazon CloudWatch can monitor memory and trigger alarms, but AWS Auto Scaling only supports horizontal scaling (changing the number of instances), not vertical scaling (changing instance type) of a single instance.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.